A Conversation with Alexander Vindman
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 23 November 2020
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Following his appearance on Friday on the Lawfare Podcast, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, the Pritzker Military Fellow at the Lawfare Institute, appeared on Lawfare Live for a live video conversation and audience Q&A. It was a very good conversation—so good that we thought we would bring you an edited version of it as Part Two of our conversation with Alex Vindman. He discussed how one becomes an NSC director while serving in the active duty military, what risks the transition period has in foreign relations, whether he has any regrets about his decision to speak out during the impeachment and much more.
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Transcript
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| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:32.6 | What was probably unique and unprecedented was that, you know, in the case of Oliver |
| 0:39.5 | North, he was supportive of the president, maybe to the detriment to his obligation to |
| 0:45.0 | his oath, to the Constitution, but he was basically at least aligned with the |
| 0:49.9 | president there. Here an active duty service member was at odds with the president, but |
| 0:55.5 | aligned with the Constitution. That's a very unusual place to be. You would think that |
| 0:59.9 | those two would be a completely aligned. So for me, it was a major concern. What was |
| 1:04.5 | my obligation? It was my obligation to the commander-in-chief or to the Constitution. |
| 1:08.6 | I knew it worked, but it was ultimately to the Constitution. But it was something |
| 1:12.5 | that I had to wrestle with. It's something that the Army and the Department of Defense |
| 1:15.9 | had to wrestle with also. And the way that they kind of dealt with it is they just |
| 1:20.6 | sat it out, sat on the sidelines, didn't provide really any substance of support. |
| 1:26.6 | I'm Benjamin Wittes and this is the LawFair podcast November 23, 2020. Following his appearance |
| 1:34.5 | on Friday on the LawFair podcast, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, the Pritzker |
| 1:40.8 | Military Fellow at the LawFair Institute, had a live video conversation with the |
| 1:47.7 | LawFair audience on LawFair Live. It was a very good conversation, so good that we |
| 1:53.8 | thought we would bring you an edited version of it as part two of our conversation with |
| 2:00.2 | Alex Vindman. We covered a lot of ground. How does one become an NSC director while serving |
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